| Edition |
1st ed. |
| Description |
320 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm |
|
text txt rdacontent |
|
unmediated n rdamedia |
|
volume nc rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-305) and index. |
| Summary |
"This is the history of the most important navigational device of all time, the magnetic compass, born of the need for a reliable means of navigating treacherous sea routes around the globe. Compass chronicles the misadventures of those who attempted to perfect the instrument - so precious to sixteenth-century seamen that by law, any man found tampering with it had his hand pinned to the mast with a dagger." "Compass is organized in loosely chronological order - with detours for particularly significant people or topics - in twenty-one short chapters."--Jacket. |
| Contents |
Dead Reckoning -- Needle and Stone -- The Rose of the Winds -- Variation and Dip -- Edmond Halley, Polymath -- To Compass the Globe -- Halleyan Lines -- Dr. Gowin Knight and His Magnetic Machine -- Knight's Compass -- The Shocks of Tempestuous Seas -- Any Old Iron, Any Old Iron -- The Book of Bearings -- The Flinders Bar -- Soft Iron, Hard Iron -- "An Evil So Pregnant with Mischief" -- Deviation, the Hydra-Headed Monster -- The "Inextricable Entangled Web" -- Gray's Binnacle -- Thomson's Compass and Binnacle -- The Selling of a Compass -- A Question of Liquidity -- Epilogue: From Needle to Spinning Top -- Deviation. |
| Subject |
Compass -- History.
|
|
Compass. (OCoLC)fst00871379
|
| Genre/Form |
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
|
| ISBN |
0393050734 (hardcover) |
|
9780393050738 (hardcover) |
|
0393327132 (pbk.) |
|
9780393327137 (pbk.) |
|
